The road to change: Excuses or Honesty?

The road to change: Excuses or Honesty?

I stepped on the scale today for my weekly weigh-in and discovered the numbers are getting bigger instead of smaller. The increase is only a few pounds; I’m not discouraged, just motivated to get back on track and make better choices. In the last week, I’ve used a lot of excuses to make choices I shouldn’t have made: I’m tired, I’m stressed-out, I’ve been good and deserve a reward, It’s only a small Frosty. You get the idea. As a result, I’ve eaten too many calories, and often the wrong kind of calories. Now I’ve earned the natural consequences – gaining weight.

I’ve been working with one of my sons on making a change in his life. He’s a real master at excuses. There’s always a reason he couldn’t do what he should have, and it’s never his fault. I keep telling him that change won’t happen if he continues to use excuses. Hmmm. I guess it’s time for me to take my own advice 🙂

I’m still discovering what works for me, but here are the changes I’m enforcing this week:

Stay within my calorie limit for the day. If I go over, it shouldn’t be because of junk food

Focus on eating healthy foods that are packed with nutrition. If I have a choice between a piece of chocolate and a handful of nuts, the nuts should be an obvious choice.

No more snacking after supper. I find it too easy to keep eating once I start. Maybe someday I’ll get to the place I can handle one healthy snack after supper, but until I can, I really don’t need a snack after supper.

Make sure I drink enough water. Especially now that it’s getting warmer outside, I need to make sure I stay hydrated.

6 thoughts on “The road to change: Excuses or Honesty?”

All the best Ruth! I think the first few days of re-establishing good habits are the hardest. I’m doing the same thing by denying myself my 2:00 p.m. handful of chocolate chips with coffee. Ooh I love those. But they weren’t doing good things to the numbers. Now that I’ve denied myself that treat this whole last week, I don’t even think of it any more as I’m pressing my mug of French roast.

Ruth, I’ve been battling my attraction to sugar and attempting to re-establish a regular fitness practice — 150 minutes per week. Doesn’t sound like much until it’s time to do it. I’m a master at excuses too. Too hot, too cold, too rainy, too windy, too tired, too busy. Often it’s because there are so many other more important things to be done. I must do. It feels wasteful to spend that time. Here’s what spurs me to move past my excuses: the less I make time for what I know are healthy practices, the less I’m motivated to do much else.